15 Jan 2010

D & V – The Nearest Door 7"
“Sheffield's D & V weren't to everybody's taste, but once heard, they were never forgotten… how many other anarcho-punk bands comprised just a drummer and a vocalist? And what better way to deliver a pertinent message other than just the words of wisdom you care to impart and a rhythm against which to deliver them?” Ian Glasper

“People always used to say, 'What happened to the guitarist and bassist?' But we just wanted to stand out from the crowd really.” Jeff Antcliffe

Second Auschwitz – The Arse of Mankind!
And more minimal Dutch stuff: “Noise, noise, noise!! According to legend, these Dutch punks never practiced or wrote any songs, or even played their instruments before they started recording their bursts of magic.” Terminal Escape

10 Jan 2010

The Residents – Commercial Album LP
“Here's the concept: The structure of most pop songs consists of only two parts, the verse and the chorus. Since the verse and chorus usually repeat three times in a three-minute song, a pop tune really only consists of one minute of music. Cut out the repetition and you can, therefore, fit 40 pop songs onto a 40-minute record. And that's exactly what the Residents have done on The Commercial Album, the title of which comes from the band's deduction that since pop songs only consist of one minute of music and most advertisements are about a minute long also, ad jingles are "therefore the music of America." Got it?” AMG

Wire – Pink Flag LP
“Wire were one of the most adventurous bands to emerge in the late seventies. Their early music was minimalist but in the early eighties their non-conformist avant-garde music combined both art and anger, often with a futuristic sound, which gave it an unique feel.” Vernon Joynson

6 Jan 2010

“In the Autumn of 1977 both Sounds and NME ran free Musicians Wanted ads. I placed an ad in both which read 'Musicans wanted to take over where the Velvet Underground left off.' It wasn't meant to be presumptuous. If I'd placed the same ad six or seven years later it would have attracted a bunch of Jesus & Mary Chain copyists. If I placed the same ad now, god knows who it would attract. People who want to make music for car ads perhaps. But in 1977 it was a way of attracting like minded individuals from those select few who knew, and cared, who the Velvet Underground were.” Rob Chapman

The Glaxo Babies

“We were fairly isolated from the 'scene' at first. We didn't really know anybody. Tom knew some of the Clifton crowd, an amiable Cortina or two, and later on when we got more 'accepted' it was nice to go round their houses after we got back from the pub. They all had trendy middle class parents, that Clifton lot, none of whom minded you skinning up in their pine kitchens. But initially we were outcasts and that was our strength. A rumour went round in the early days about all the warring and bitchy factions in the Bristol music scene. You know the sort of thing. 'What about band A?' 'Oh, they hate band B?' 'What about band C?' 'They hate band D'. 'What about the Gl*xo Babies' 'Oh, they hate everybody.' We didn't, we just didn't know anyone, but we were happy to indulge the myth. We weren't part of any clique. That's why we didn't sound like anybody else.” Rob Chapman

“Olga de Volga leaded this hypnotic and unique San Francisco band that only released this single back in the 1980. She joined the Lewd later and this song is rerecorded on the American Wino LP, faster and rougher but without the magic charm.” The Ripper

By the way, this terrific song was included in the great Brainkiller bootleg compilation – which years ago I was lucky to get a copy. To this day, this song is still my favourite of the whole compilation.

The Magits – Fully Coherent 7" EP
“Nick and I were at the same secondary school together, Langleybury Comprehensive. And we met through a mutual friend also at the school, Martin 'Drooper' Cooper. This was when The Magits were formed, alongside another school friend, Alex Hawkes. I reckon this would have been in '78 or '79. We used to have the odd rehearsal around my parents' place, and by god we needed it! Musically, it was pretty shambolic and probably naive, but it was just exciting to be a part of the punk thing. I don't have any memories of Magit gigs, but that's not to say there weren't any…” Jon Greville

“Testament to the empowering qualities of punk rock, even a band as obscure as The Magits could immortalise themselves on vinyl; no longer was that a privilege the preserve of larger-than-life rock-stars… no, now anyone could release a record if they merely set their mind to it. Which the Magits duly did in 1979, with the four-track 'Fully Coherent' EP, for Nick's own Outer Himalayan Records, the rather disconcerting result. Anyone who has heard this perverse, meandering collection of keyboard torture will know that its song titles such as 'Fragmented' and 'Disjointed' are mischievously and knowingly apt.” Ian Glasper

Fang – Enjoy The View 7"
“Their debut 7" from when the band was still a duo (both ex-Tapeworm members, by the way). Really basic stuff, simple, stumbling drums, some noisy guitar/bass chords, murmured vocals. A side at least a basic RnR pattern, the B side is even more minimalistic. Sound is very garagey. Kind of funny, but definitely no milestone.” Burkhard Järisch

“What is now called punk may sound familiar, but too often the spirit has been replaced by rules – a kind of fundamentalism, even. The cartoony harder-core-than-thou crowd reminds me a little too much of Fonzie on Happy Days – they're as much fun to fuck with as Zeppelin and Skynyrd fans were way back then.” Jello Biafra

“Punk has become, to me, almost the status quo, so what I'm doing is challenging punk.” Matt Wobensmith

“When I got on stage, I was attacking the audience in my mind. This music was intended to challenge the audience, because when I went to a gig I wanted to be challenged. I wanted somebody to kick me in the face, metaphorically.” Glenn Branca

“We were criticised a lot for only playing about once or twice a month. But whenever we played we always had new material, and that was part of the attraction of the band. You never knew what you were going to be hearing.” Glenn Branca